Abstract

Recognising the growing importance of design, this paper reports on the development of an approach to measuring design at a national level. A series of measures is proposed, that are based around a simplified model of design as a system at a national level. This model was developed though insights from literature and a workshop with government, industry and design sector representatives. Detailed data on design in the UK is presented to highlight the difficulties in collecting reliable and robust data. Evidence is compared with four countries (Spain, Canada, Korea and Sweden). This comparison highlights the inherent difficulties in comparing performance and a revised set of measures is proposed. Finally, an approach to capturing design spend at a firm level is proposed, based on insights from literature and case studies.